The Man Who Plunged Mali Into Chaos Is On Hunger Strike In Jail

Coup
leader Captain Sanogo attends a ceremony as former parliament
speaker Traore is sworn in as Mali's interim president in the
captial BamakoThomson
Reuters

BAMAKO (Reuters) - The leader of a military coup that plunged
Mali into chaos two years ago and allowed Islamists to seize its
desert north has started a hunger strike to protest against the
conditions of his detention, legal and military sources said on
Thursday.

General Amadou Sanogo was arrested and charged with complicity in
kidnapping last November with regard to the disappearance during
the 2012 coup of dozens of paratroopers loyal to toppled
President Amadou Toumani Toure.

Authorities have discovered 30 bodies, some of them in military
uniforms, in mass graves near the headquarters of the coup
leaders at the military barracks in the town of Kati, just
outside the capital Bamako.

Sanogo is protesting over his transfer to the lakeside town of
Selingue, 150 km (90 miles) south of Bamako. His lawyer said this
had left him cut off from his family and legal advisers, deprived
him of medical care and placed him in danger.

"He is going to observe a hunger strike and also to abstain from
medical treatment," Harouna Toure told Reuters.

A military source close to the general confirmed that he had
begun a hunger strike on Wednesday.

Selingue, which lies near the border with Guinea and is the site
of one of Mali's largest hydroelectric dams, is a popular tourist
destination in the West African country.

Thirty-two Malian soldiers arrested with Sanogo in November have
been released after they began a hunger strike in January to
protest against the conditions of their detention.

While the 2012 coup drew international condemnation, it was
welcomed by many ordinary Malians who were tired of years of
widespread graft and political deadlock.

Sanogo himself was popular with many Malians, though subsequent
allegations of rights abuses and graft under the junta have
dented his reputation.

The government of President Ibrahima Boubacar Keita, elected last
August, is under pressure to restore the state's authority over
the army and to root out pockets of remaining Islamist rebels in
the north. A French-led military intervention last year helped
break the Islamists' grip over the desert region.

General Yamoussa Camara, a former defense minister during the
military rule, and three other senior junta officials were
arrested in February in connection with the investigation. They
are being held in separate locations around Mali.